Jul 23, 2013

My friend gave me eggplants from her garden, and I used it to make this delicious hot pressed sandwich. If you can find a whole wheat baguette, even better! A perfect summer panini made with eggplant, tomatoes, mozzarella and skinny pesto on crispy French bread. Make this for one, or for the whole family.

I love, love, LOVE Panini night in my house because everyone is happy and they are so easy to make. If you're capable of making a grilled cheese, then you can make a panini, that's how simple and you don't need a fancy panini press to make it. Prior to owning my panini press, I used my George Forman grill or made them on the stove in a grill pan with an iron skillet on top to press it down.

I grilled the eggplant right on the panini press, so there's no dirtying extra pans. A perfect Meatless Monday dish, and even the meat-lovers in your house will enjoy this sandwich.
If you're a newbie to Skinnytaste, check out my tip on how to make a larger sandwich for less calories. If you are making this for one, simply divide the ingredients by four.

Slice the eggplant into 1/4-inch thick slices. Place the eggplant slices on a paper towel and season with salt; set aside about 30 minutes. This will help draw some of the moisture out of the eggplant. Pat the eggplant dry with paper towels.

Preheat panini grill. Lightly spritz eggplant with olive oil, season with salt and pepper. When the grill is hot, grill eggplant about 7-8 minutes, turning once half way through. Set aside.

Slice the bread open and place 3 slices of grilled eggplant, 1 slice of mozzarella, 1/2 tablespoon of pesto, and 2 slices of tomatoes on each sandwich.

Close and lightly spray the top of the bread with oil. Place on a panini press and close until the cheese melts and the bread is toasted. Cut in half diagonally and eat immediately.

This looks amazing and it solves two recent issues i've been having: I've been going back and forth between buying a panini press PLUS I've been looking for more options to prepare my new friend, Sir Eggplant. LOVE this post. Thank you :)

We love eggplant but not the salt and roasting process. Much quicker: Slice the eggplant, and steam slices in a vegetable steamer basket inside saucepan until tender. This sometimes takes as little as 5 minutes for a garden eggplant, and it doesnt heat up your house the oven. Roasted eggplant drizzled with olive oil is a finer result, but for an ordinary meal steaming works fine to get the eggplant cooked.

You said this works good with a george forman? I have had one for awhile but haven't used it. I am scared to try it! I have seen so many roasted veggie things I want to try but am nervous about using the george forman for it...any tips?

I have a great tosti maker that can double as a panini press but I have been wondering how to make a proper panini because we didn't have the proper bread... How easy is it to just use a baguette! Kind of facepalming myself right now for not thinking of that.

Wow, I actually have all the ingredients in the fridge right now. I just made homemade pesto yesterday and I've been trying to figure out what to do with the eggplant I got from my CSA. This is perfect. I will have to make this for dinner!

Woo hoo! I just received my panini press yesterday! We do Meatless Mondays, Panini Fridays, and Crockpot Sundays at my house. You have killed two meals with one stone for me (because this is definitely worth 2 meals in one week)! Love this site. :)

Wow. I just made this for dinner and, I've got to admit, I was tempted to add some mayo or something on one of the bread sides. I kept my cool and made it as directed. Absolutely great. Love your stuff, Gina. I can't cook enough to make all the things I want to make.

Neither eggplant nor pesto interest me in the least, BUT it gives me a good starting point for sandwiches I would enjoy. Never would have thought to use the George Foreman grill for a sandwich, but it's perfect! Thanks!

Made this last night for my daughter and her friend. They loved it, both had two panni's each and I made it without the press, just baked in oven...was great recipe, didn't know making pesto could be so easy. Thank you Gina for all your great ideas!

This looks great, I had some baby eggplants, so I made what I call Slider Paninis, and because I am vegan I used nutritional yeast to replace the cheese in the pesto,and Rice cheese in the sandwich. Thanks so much, your recipes inspire me.

I just made this for dinner tonight and it was fabulous!! Both the pesto and the eggplant were so delicious! We had leftover eggplant and ended up eating it like chips :o) Will definitely be making this one again soon.

OMG!!!! That sandwich was AWESOME!!!! One of the best I have ever made "at home"! Basil for pesto right out of the garden and tomatoes and eggplant too! I used a focaccia bread and it toasted up nicely in the pannini press!!! I will be using the rest of the pesto for the pesto grilled shrimp later in the week!

Pesto was not as liquid-y as I expected but delicious and flavourful! I love the method of placing eggplant (being British I still cannot get my head around calling it eggplant!) on paper towel before grilling, and using the panini maker to grill worked really well and was much healthier than my usual method of frying with copious amounts of oil before baking. Overall I really enjoyed the sandwich, and the only change I made was using 1 slice of fresh mozzarella which was delicious! For the baguette I used Whole Foods organic wheat, took filling out as skinnytaste recommends. Great trick as I prefer crust of baguette to bread anyway and you get more filling that way :). I found this on pinterest and cant wait to try more recipes - when are you coming out with a cookbook??

Hubby just got a panini press for Christmas and I have been really trying to make use of it. This recipe is amazing!!! I just had a leftover for lunch and even cold it was fantastic! The pesto is delicious and I used a little extra garlic just because I love garlic. I never had grilled eggplant and I had a hard time not eating it all before it ended up on the sandwich. Any idea how to make the eggplant without the salt? I am trying to lower my sodium intake thanks!

YUMMMM...I made this Monday night for meatless Monday, and had enough to make for lunch again today. SO GOOD!! I would recommend peeling the eggplant, at least stripe peeled, since the skin seems to stay a little tough...very very good.

I have used all of the methods listed above instead of a panini press and I have to say, nothing compares to the crispiness that the panini press creates! This looks incredible. What an amazing summer sandwich.

The bread in the original picture does not look like the same bread in the picture farther down. Is that first picture really a 9-point sandwich? Or is it two 9-point sandwiches? The one further down (it's pictured open) looks like a much smaller serving.

Having an all Skinny Taste dinner week. Made this one last night. I have a basil garden so made fresh pesto. The family LOVED them. My son, who moves out for the first time tomorrow, made the comment "NOW you find this recipe!" LOL I told him he's going to have to learn to cook!

After washing the eggplant, cut lines in the eggplant (like fancy carrots or radishes). Then cut the eggplant. This makes the eggplant skin easier to chew. You will get lots of the nutrition from the skin. We have made this twice, and love it for a quick Sunday afternoon football meal. Also, a nice way to use up the late summer tomatoes. I used fresh basil from my deck. Delicious!